Archive for April, 2013|Monthly archive page

I went to a short class two weeks ago taught by Katie Holland from Bling is my thing. It was a great new beginning and it made me clean up the mess that is my studio space and go from working big (3-4 feet) back to small (1-2 inches).

Copper square and button bracelet

broken jewelry neck piece

Here’s some of the metal stuff that I’m working on. The first (and most finished piece) is the result of the workshop. The rest came after it. And there are 4-5 additional and unfinished pieces that are in progress on my workbench. Does it make you want to beat on some metal too???

(I make my own lemon vodka with Meyer lemons, the peel and the juice so it’s a tart liquere. I don’t think that lemoncello would be a good substitute since it’s pretty sweet. You could add a shot of lemon juice to tart it up.)

2 parts good tequila

Consider rimming your glass with salt.

Put everything in a cocktail shaker with a bunch of ice and shake 40 times. Pour into a glass without straining. Save the other half of the grapefruit ’cause you’re gonna want another.

Maybe I’ll get a photo of the next one but you have to catch them quickly before they’re gone.

I just listened to a great, short MP3 from the Influence book by the folks at Vital Smarts, who wrote Crucial Conversations. It’s best to hear it directly if this link will work. I got it in return for completing a survey so it might just be for me, so here’s the gist of the idea:

If you tell people the conclusions that you have derived from an experience you have a much reduced chance of influencing them. Rather, tell them a story that begins at the beginning of your experience and allows them to travel with you to the end so that all of you arrive at the conclusion together. Makes sense to me, that backing down the Ladder of Inference again. But we get in such a hurry to solve problems that we just want to cut to the chase and get to the problem solving. If we cut to the chase, we leave everyone out of the solution space and then have to impose a solution on the group. The most that they can do is to improve our solution, which if arrived at too quickly, rarely addresses the right problem.

What can I do to remember this process in the heat of the need to solve problems?

Let me know if the MP3 doesn’t work and I’ll try to find another source.

I missed pranking for April Fools but if I had read this fiverr email at the time I received it, the option at this link would have been too good not to figure out who to send to. I might send one anyway, much later. This might be too creepy for the start of your day. It almost was for mine. Are you intrigued?